


If Love Is a Labor

by awareoftheconcept



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 04:10:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14926902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awareoftheconcept/pseuds/awareoftheconcept
Summary: Matt gets called to the med bay after Keith gets injured to try and calm down a fight that has been building for three months.***“I’m fine, Shiro,” Keith said, brow furrowing when the only response he got back was a scoff. “I said I’m fine,” he emphasized, hissing when Shiro angrily swiped antibiotic across his wound.“You may be fine now,” Shiro said derisively. “But that doesn’t change the fact that, once again, you ran headfirst into the enemy without even a second thought for your own safety.”“Me?” Keith questioned as his hand reached up to brush aside Shiro’s hair that was currently matted with blood. Matt couldn’t see the wound itself, but it was clear from the way Shiro jerked away from Keith’s fingers that the skin surrounding the area was tender. “Have you taken a look in the mirror recently, Shiro?”“Why?” Shiro deflected as he turned to the cabinet to grab a fresh package of gauze. “Am I suddenly wearing a Blades uniform and butchered my hair into a mullet?”





	If Love Is a Labor

**Author's Note:**

> Had to get this out before season 6 starts. If there are any mistakes, please let me know. As usual, none of these characters belong to me. Enjoy!

Matt was in the conference room debriefing over their latest mission when Pidge’s voice clicked through his comm.

“Hey, Matt,” his sister said in that taut voice she used when she was uneasy but was pretending to be calm. “How long until you get back to the Castle?”

“I’m in the Castle right now,” Matt whispered as he started heading out the door. He waved off Allura’s concerned look, giving her a thumb up as he left. “What’s up?”

“We have a bit of a-” he could hear muffled shouting in the background. “Umm, well, a bit of a…situation in the med bay and we could use your assistance.”

“Is everything okay?” Matt asked.

“Well-” he could hear the shouting both in the background from Pidge and coming from up ahead now as he rounded the corner.

“Pidge,” Matt said, drawing out her name as his pace quickened. “What am I walking myself into right now?”

“It’s not a big deal, not really. Keith just got caught by some of the sentry bots and is injured. Not bad though!” she exclaimed before Matt could even ask. “Just a few cuts here and there. But, you know how Keith is, and he’s refusing to get in the refresher. So, Shiro is trying to patch him up, but Keith is being uncooperative and-”

“Oh my gosh!” Lance’s voice cut through his sister’s rambling. “Keith got hurt and Shiro overreacted and now they have been screaming at each other for the past ten minutes.”

Matt, who had been running at this point, stopped dead in his tracks. “Are…are you serious?”

“Matt?”

“You had me panicking over _this_?” Matt exclaimed as he started walking again. “Come on, Katie! I thought someone had died with the way you set this conversation up!”

The shouting was louder now as he reached the door to the med bay.

“Yeah, well, if you don’t get here soon, I’m pretty sure Shiro’s going to jettison Keith into space,” Lance replied dryly. “You roomed with them back in the Garrison, right? Can you fix this?”

“Did you say that Shiro’s mad at Keith?” Matt asked right as the door swooshed open. Keith was sitting up on one of the examination tables in the room, his arms crossed angrily as Shiro was trying to stitch up the large gash that ran down his leg. “Then probably not.”

It was clear just by the vibe in the room how uncomfortable everyone was. Hunk was busy trying to clean off the mud from his helmet, his head bent down while he tried to ignore the argument. Lance, on the other hand was watching the fight with mocking interest, which did a poor job of masking his genuine concern. Pidge was hovering by the door, clearly having spent the entire time debating calling Matt at all. All three of them turned towards Matt with looks of relief on their faces, but the two loudest occupants of the room hadn’t even seen him enter, too wrapped up in their shouting contest.

“Why are we even still talking about this?” Keith asked, fuming as tried not to wince every time Shiro added another stitch. “The villagers are safe. Voltron is safe. Everyone is safe. So drop it.”

“Does this look safe to you?” Shiro asked, gesturing towards Keith’s leg.

“I’m fine, Shiro,” Keith said, brow furrowing when the only response he got back was a scoff. “I said I’m _fine_ ,” he emphasized, hissing when Shiro angrily swiped antibiotic across his wound.

“You may be fine now,” Shiro said derisively. “But that doesn’t change the fact that, once again, you ran headfirst into the enemy without even a second thought for your own safety.”

“Me?” Keith questioned as his hand reached up to brush aside Shiro’s hair that was currently matted with blood. Matt couldn’t see the wound itself, but it was clear from the way Shiro jerked away from Keith’s fingers that the skin surrounding the area was tender. “Have you taken a look in the mirror recently, Shiro?”

“Why?” Shiro deflected as he turned to the cabinet to grab a fresh package of gauze. “Am I suddenly wearing a Blades uniform and butchered my hair into a mullet?”

Matt had to stop himself from laughing at the comment, but Lance let out a hoot that was immediately silenced by an icy glare from Keith. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t the one who decided that fighting a bunch of heavily armed sentry bots barehanded was a good idea.”

“No,” Shiro growled back. “You’re just the one who thought a _knife_ was acceptable.”

They continued to argue like this as Matt went to stand by Pidge. “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

Lance shrugged. “They’ve been here for about ten minutes now, but we could hear them fighting all the way back from the village. We came in here when we heard a loud crash, and by then-”

Shiro’s voice cut through Lance’s explanation. “So what you’re telling me is you went in there fully prepared to die, then?”

“I went in prepared to do my job,” Keith fired back.

Matt sighed. “Do you have any idea how many times I have heard this argument already?”

“Does that mean you can fix this?” Lance asked, waving his arms wildly in their general direction.

“No, that means that Matt doesn’t get to sleep tonight,” Matt said. Upon seeing the blank faces on the three younger paladins, Matt tried to spell out his statement. “Listen, it’s really great that you guys want to help, but at this point it’s probably best to just let them work this out on their own. Trust me. It doesn’t sound like Shiro is going to let this go anytime soon. Which means that Keith won’t let this go. Which means I have to deal with both of them whining about the other until one of them finally decides to apologize.”

“Except you’re forgetting that Keith can just disappear into a Blades assignment halfway across the universe,” Pidge said irritably.

“Dammit,” was all Matt could say at the reminder.

Ever since the disastrous revelation of Kuron, followed by the desperate effort to retrieve Shiro from Galra control, Keith had kept his distance. This was the first time they had all seen him in two months, and it was only because Kolivan had commanded Keith’s help. And while Matt could take a few educated guesses behind Keith’s reasoning, this didn’t change the fact that he had left when Shiro needed him the most.

“I just don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Keith actually had the nerve to say.

“You constantly put yourself in harm’s way, yet you’re surprised when I finally speak out against it?” Shiro said, the harshness of his words taking a backseat to the gentle way he was wrapping Keith’s leg with gauze.

“ _Finally_?” Keith laughed crudely. “Shiro, you never shy away from telling me that what I did was wrong.”

“Well, you would think at this point you would have gotten it through your head that you have a team for a reason,” Shiro said. “Or has all this time with the Blades made you forget that?”

Matt knew exactly where this conversation was headed, and he desperately went to work trying to make sure there wasn’t an audience. “Umm, guys,” he said in a hushed tone as he put a hand on Pidge and Lance’s shoulder, ushering them towards the door. “Maybe we should leave.”

But before they could even reach the exit, the door slid open, revealing Allura and Krolia.

“I heard my son has been injured,” Krolia said in a deadpanned voice, Matt unsure if she was actually concerned or just curious.

“What is with all this shouting?” the princess demanded, clearly worried that something terrible had happened to cause this uproar.

“So that’s what this is about,” Keith’s cold voice could be heard, drawing everyone’s attention to the center of the room before Matt could finish guiding everyone out. “You’re not mad that I got hurt, or that I disobeyed orders. You’re mad that I’m working for the Blades.” Shiro was still sitting down in the chair next Keith and looking genuinely confused, so Keith continued with his sudden revelation, getting angrier by the second. “Just admit it, Shiro. Admit that you hate that I left Voltron. That I’m still working for the Blades. Admit that you don’t trust me anymore!”

That comment seemed to finally snap Shiro out of his stupor, his anger flaring back to life. “Trust you? Keith, I don’t even know you anymore!” he yelled, slamming the tray of medical supplies on the table, causing everyone but Shiro and Keith to flinch. Krolia took a step forward, but Matt threw out his arm to stop her. “When I came back and found out that you had left Voltron, I’ll admit, it was a bit of a shock. But I had been gone for so long, and everyone seemed to have already adjusted to the change, so I didn’t say anything hoping that nothing would be different. And yet here we are, three months later, and the first actual conversation we’ve had is one where we’re screaming at each other!”

“You’re the one who started yelling first!”

“Are you just going to spend this entire time putting the blame on me here?” Shiro challenged. Before Keith could even start to answer that question, Shiro continued forward with a cool, quiet anger bubbling underneath his words. “We had a plan. And yeah, it may have fallen apart the minute that transport showed up with reinforcements, but you wasted no time in trying to sacrifice yourself just to save us a few minutes.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” was the only justification Keith could come up with.

“That’s not the point!” Shiro exclaimed. “Do you have any idea how stressful it is to be in love with you knowing that every time there is a _slight_ hitch in our plans, I have to worry about you rushing off and taking unnecessary risks because of your inability to realize that you are surrounded by people who can, and are willing, to help?”

The entire room had come to a halt at Shiro’s declaration, Keith included, who was just staring at Shiro with wide eyes and an open mouth. Having not realized his accidental admission, Shiro used Keith’s silence to continue his argument uninterrupted.

“You may have had this mentality back in the Garrison, but it is a thousand times worse since you’ve started working for the Blades. All they care about are results, no matter the cost. The way I see it, the only thing that organization has done is feed into your martyr complex, which was pretty damn big to begin with! So if you want an honest answer to your earlier question, then no! No, I don’t trust you! Not while you continue working for a group that sees you as little more than a replaceable tool in their ever expanding belt!”

He ended his rant by glaring at Keith, waiting for the explosive response to come, but all he got was that same wide-eyed stare. He looked around the room, jumping a little as if he had just now noticed the audience in the room. Matt knew that their faces were nearly identical to Keith’s, which only seemed to compound Shiro’s confusion. He turned back to Keith when he heard his voice stutter out, “Wh- what did you say?”

“I…,” Shiro trailed off, his eyebrows furrowed as he replayed the last few moments in his head. Matt recognized the moment Shiro figured it out, his eyes squeezing shut and jaw clenching as he realized the enormity of what he had just said. He stood up, hands dropping to his sides as he took a step back and turned, stopping awkwardly when Keith grabbed his wrist.

“Wait,” Keith said, his voice coming out barely above a whisper. “Shiro, please. Just wait.”

Matt took the opportunity to shove everyone out the door, only needing to truly exert force with Krolia. The door shut with a definitive thud, despite the usual quiet that would accompany the automatic doors.

Shiro was still standing, his back towards Keith and body poised to run the moment Keith let go, which was why Keith was keeping a tight grip on his wrist. He could feel Shiro’s arm twitch, but it was clear he was reluctant to be the one to break the contact.

“Shiro,” Keith started to say, his voice coming out louder than he expected.

“We don’t need to have this talk, Keith,” Shiro said, his voice laced with agitation and regret. “I know that you don’t feel the same, so just let me go.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Keith said angrily, his go to emotion when he was feeling out of depth. He chided himself, knowing that was what got them into this situation in the first place, but it had the desired effect of causing Shiro to finally turn around and face him again.

“I’m not,” Shiro countered. “I’m putting words to your actions.”

Keith flinched back as if Shiro had struck him, finally releasing his arm. “That’s not fair.”

Shiro used the opportunity to put some distance between them, but thankfully he didn’t stray too far. “Are you serious right now? After everything that has happened, you’re going to sit there and tell me that I am somehow misinterpreting what has been going on for the past three months? The ignored calls. The flimsy excuses. You brought Slav with you the last time you visited, Keith. _Slav_!”

“That last one was not my decision!” Keith defended.

“But the rest were!”  

Unable to come up with an argument against the claim, Keith made an irrational decision to start a completely new fight to turn the tables around. “Awfully convenient that you have these sudden feelings for me,” he spat out, hating himself even as the words came spewing out of his mouth. “Does that make it easier for you to paint me as the bad guy here?”

“Unbelievable,” Shiro said as he turned to leave once again. “You are unbelievable. Why did I ever think I could have an honest conversation with you about this?”

“Is that your excuse for why you never said anything?” Keith demanded.

“When would have been a good time to have this talk, Keith?” Shiro all but shouted at him. “Was I supposed to tell you when I accepted a mission that was going to take me away for a year? Or how about when I came back to Earth, broken beyond belief and the only thing holding me together was you?” Shiro laughed humorlessly. “No, you’re right. I _definitely_ should have told you after you saved me, yet again from the Empire, and then disappeared behind your newfound family.”

They sat in silence after Shiro’s outburst, Keith picking at the bandage on his leg while stubbornly refusing to meet Shiro’s gaze. “You honestly expect me to believe that you’ve been in love with me since before Kerberos.”

“Believe whatever you want, Keith,” Shiro said dismissively, a note of resignation in his voice. “You never listen to me anyways.” Keith’s head shot up, panicking at the finality in his words. But to his surprise, instead of leaving like Keith assumed he would, Shiro let out a mournful sigh and sat back down on the chair in front of the table. “I just…I wish you would have given me a chance to fix whatever it was that I did.”

“You didn’t do anything that needs fixing,” Keith croaked out after a few painfully silent moments.

“Then why are you pushing me away?” The gentle way he asked the question, his voice devoid of judgement and face filled with understanding, was the final breaking point for Keith.

“Because I abandoned you, Shiro!” he cried out. “I played right into the Empire’s hands! They wanted Voltron to fracture, they wanted us to fight amongst ourselves, and I just went along with it! All because I thought you had finally given up on me. So I left. I started working for the Blades, spending less time with Voltron, less time with _you_ , because once you stopped caring about me I had no reason to stay. But if I had stayed,” Keith stumbled over his words. “If I hadn’t been so selfish, we could have saved you sooner. _I_ could have saved you sooner. How,” he started to say, choking a little as his throat grew tight with emotion. He looked up into Shiro’s eyes. “How could you possibly still love me after all of this?”

Keith, exhausted by his emotional speech, was completely dumbfounded when Shiro answered his question with a speech of his own. “It’s not that complicated,” Shiro said with a shrug. “I love you, Keith. I know that you don’t like sharing your emotions, and yes, it hurts every time you push away from me to hide them, but I’m committed to you. I’m committed to us, whether that is just as friends or something more.” He cautiously reached forward, grabbing Keith’s hand and gripping it tight. “And if you want to stay with the Blades, I’m confident that we can survive that. You are the most important person in my life, and I just want to make you feel as happy and safe as you make me. So, short of you telling me to back off and leave you alone, I will continue to stay by your side until-”

Keith surged forward, grabbing Shiro’s face with both his hands and smashing their mouths together. Their lips met in a cacophony of pain and pleasure, a kind of desperation that was exclusively on Keith’s side. Shiro tried to pull back, but Keith refused to let up, continuing to pepper Shiro’s mouth with tiny kisses.

“Keith” – he tried to say – “you don’t” – another kiss – “have to” –

Keith leaned back just enough to growl out, “Too much talking” before diving right back in.

“Keith,” Shiro weakly protested.

“I love you.”

And there it was. Out in the open. No more hiding behind exaggerated obligations or emotional defenses. Keith couldn’t take it back even if he wanted to.

It was exactly what Shiro needed to push him over the edge.

He stood up, slotting himself in between Keith’s legs and grabbed a fistful of hair as he deepen the kiss. Keith let out a pleased hum, pressing in to the motion as his legs automatically wrapped around Shiro to pull him impossibly closer. He winced as he felt a sharp pain tear through his thigh, cursing at himself even as he prayed Shiro hadn’t noticed.

But it was Shiro, so of course he noticed.

“Your leg,” he murmured as he pulled back, completely out of breath after the kiss.

“I’m fine, Shiro,” Keith answered distractedly, trying to grab at Shiro’s face again. But Shiro looked down before Keith could stop him, gesturing at the blood that was seeping through the gauze. “I said I’m _fine_ ,” he emphasized.

Shiro groaned in frustration as he pushed his forehead into Keith’s shoulder, trying to hide his laugh. “How are we having this same exact conversation for the second time today?”

“You’re just that stubborn, I guess,” Keith said, smiling at the snort that drew from Shiro. He carded his fingers through Shiro’s hair, trying to coax him back up. “So,” he drawled out innocently. “If I get in the refresher for a few minutes, do you promise we can pick right back up where we started?”

“An hour,” was the muffled response he received.

“Ten minutes.”

“An hour,” Shiro said again as he shifted against Keith, trailing kisses along his neck. “And maybe a bit more talking so I know we’re on the same page here.”

“See what I mean,” Keith said as he turned, stealing one last kiss before allowing Shiro to help him over to the refresher. “Stubborn.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments are always appreciated, and let me know if this work has inspired some of your own!


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